A very belated Happy and Green New Year to all our readers. This is our first post for 2012. Like last year we start with the key environmental (and related) events in the months ahead.

We also take the opportunity to thank our team of Guest Writers for their wonderful perspectives so far and look forward to more in the coming months. A special thanks to Bharathi Shiva, who has been helping us a lot with editorial work, and to Paul Schattenberg, for his tremendous IT assistance despite a busy schedule.

And of course, we would love to acknowledge you, our dear reader, for your continued support. We are much encouraged by the warm feedback we get from you and that is really what keeps us going! As always, we would be happy to hear your suggestions and comments by email or through social media.

As we said last year:

“The dates we have compiled are found on several sites. Some are well known, and some came as a surprise to us as well. We do believe, no matter who or where you are, everyday is a day of celebration. Every day is a day for our dear planet Earth – for us to respect, conserve and manage her precious resources in a sustainable way. Every day is a day for peace and compassion.”

If we’ve missed out any important dates below, do let us know and we’ll be glad to add them in. We found quite a few new ones and have updated the list for your benefit and interest. Here it is:

Meat Free Days are a campaign to encourage a meat free diet one day a week, usually Mondays or Wednesdays. The purpose is to reduce human induced climate change, improve animal welfare and human health. Singapore’s green groups have launched a Veggie Thursday campaign.

Here’s a video recording of some of the hightlights of the Earth Day celebrations at Bottle Tree Park on 22nd April 2011

From the previous post:

A lot of excitement is building up at Bottle Tree Park, Singapore owing to the hectic preparations being done by Tay Lai Hock, the Founder of Ground-Up Initiative and a team of volunteers for Earth Day on 22nd April 2011.

“The first Earth Day, on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. The passage of the landmark Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and many other groundbreaking environmental laws soon followed. Growing out of the first Earth Day, Earth Day Network (EDN) works with over 22,000 partners in 192 countries to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world.”

MNN: In honor of Earth Day’s 41st anniversary, MNN takes an animated look back at the past four decades of U.S. environmentalism in this video.

]]>http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2011/04/12/earth-day-singapore-2011/feed/0Calendar of World Environmental Events 2011 and UN International Year of Forestshttp://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2011/01/05/calendar-of-world-environmental-events-2011-and-un-international-year-of-forests/
http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/2011/01/05/calendar-of-world-environmental-events-2011-and-un-international-year-of-forests/#commentsWed, 05 Jan 2011 06:51:22 +0000http://www.ecowalkthetalk.com/blog/?p=5343by Bhavani Prakash

This is our first blogpost for 2011. We wish our readers a very happy and green New Year! We would also like to thank our team of Guest Writers for their wonderful contributions last year and look forward to new perspectives in the coming months.

Here is a list of key environmental and human rights events for 2011. The dates are found on several sites so we thought of compiling and sharing them with you. Some are well known, and some came as a surprise to us as well. We do believe, no matter who or where you are, everyday is a day of celebration. Every day is a day for our dear planet Earth – for us to respect, conserve and manage her precious resources in a sustainable way. Everyday is a day for peace and compassion.

If we’ve missed out any important dates below, do let us know and we’ll be happy to add them in.

Meat Free Days are a campaign to encourage a meat free diet one day a week, usually Mondays or Wednesdays. The purpose is to reduce human induced climate change, improve animal welfare and human health. Singapore’s green groups have launched a Veggie Thursday campaign.

The Year 2011 has been declared as the UN INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF FORESTS to raise awareness about the precarious state of the world’s forests, and ways to preserve and manage them sustainably. The UN estimates that 350 sq kms of forests are lost every day. Pressures come from clearing for agricultural uses, such as palm oil, soybean, for livestock, timber and urban settlement. Here is the accompanying video:

FOREST FACTS

Forests cover 30 percent of the planet’s total land area. The total forested area in 2005 was just under 4 billion hectares, at least one third less than before the dawn of agriculture, some 10,000 years ago.

The ten most forest-rich countries, which account for two-thirds of the total forested area, are the Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States, China, Australia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Peru and India.

Six million hectares of primary forest are lost every year due to deforestation and modification through selective logging and other human interventions. More than one-third of all forests are primary forests, defined as forests where there are no clearly visible indications of human activity and where ecological processes are not significantly disturbed.

Only 20 per cent of the world’s forests remain in large intact areas. These forests consist of tropical rain forests, mangrove, coastal and swamp forests. Monsoon and deciduous forests flourish in the drier and more mountainous regions.

Trees quite literally form the foundations of many natural systems. They help to conserve soil and water, control avalanches, prevent desertification, protect coastal areas and stabilize sand dunes.

Forests are the most important repositories of terrestrial biological biodiversity, housing up to 90 per cent of known terrestrial species.

Forest animals have a vital role in forest ecology such as pollination, seed dispersal and germination.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide and are vital carbon sinks.

It is estimated that the world’s forests store 283 Gigatonnes of carbon in their biomass alone, and that carbonstored in forest biomass, deadwood, litter and soil together is roughly 50 per cent more than the carbon in the atmosphere.

Carbon in forest biomass decreased in Africa, Asia and South America in the period 1990–2005. For the world as a whole, carbon stocks in forest biomass decreased annually by 1.1 Gigatonne of carbon (equivalent to 4 billion 25kg sacks of charcoal).

The loss of natural forests around the world contributes more to global emissions each year than the transport sector.

World population currently stands at 6.5 billion people.It is projected to grow to 9 billion by 2042.The expansion of agricultural and industrial needs, population growth, poverty, landlessness and consumer demand are the major driving forces behind deforestation.

Most deforestation is due to conversion of forests to agricultural land. Global removals of wood for timber and fuel amounted to 3.1 billion cubic metres in 2005.

Worldwide, deforestation continues at an alarming rate, about 13 million hectares per year,an area the size of Greece or Nicaragua.

Africa and South America have the largest net loss of forests. In Africa it is estimated that nearly half of the forest loss was due to removal of wood fuel.

Forests in Europe are expanding. Asia, which had a net loss in the 1990s, reported a net gain of forests in the past five years, primarily due to large-scale forestation in China.

Eighty per cent of the world’s forests are publicly owned, but private ownership is on the rise, especially in North and Central America and in Oceania.

About 11 per cent of the world’s forests are designated for the conservation of biological diversity. These areas are mainly, but not exclusively, in protected areas.

Around 10 million people are employed in conventional forest management and conservation. Formal employment in forestry declined by about 10 per cent from 1990 to 2000.

Diwali or Deepavali is one of the most important festivals in the Hindu calendar and is celebrated in India and the world over with great pomp and fervour. People spring clean their homes, decorate them with beautiful rangoli (patterns made of coloured powder or rice), wear new clothes, offer prayers at home and at temples and greet each other with gifts and sweets. Children and grown ups alike, burst firecrackers in what has become a quintessential feature of the festival. It’s a vibrant, joyous occasion for one and all.

The purpose of Diwali is to spread light and remove our “inner darkness” or ignorance. This is usually symbolised by lighting of diyas (earthern lamps) in the house and outside. It’s a beautiful tradition. However, while customs and traditions must be maintained, we must also revisit some of things we may do rather ritualistically and weigh the kind of effects they may have on the environment.

Here are someways to celebrate the festival in a more environmentally conscious way:

Use less fireworks, or avoid them if possible . Fireworks like crackers, sparklers and pots spew out a wide range of toxic chemicals as shown below:

For a more detailed look at the kind of chemicals present in fireworks, and the health effects, here’s a website worth visiting.

Firecrackers create a lot of noise pollution and cause a lot of distress to animals and birds. Avoid them if possible or localise their use in a community to an open field. Do help to clear up the mess in your neighbourhood once the festivities are over. Luckily in Singapore, there are restrictions on noise pollution, so we are spared the noise of loud fireworks. But in India and other places, noise levels above 125 decibels may cause temporary or permanent deafness, increase in bloodpressure, or even heart attack.

Fireworks are non-biodegradable, and in places with poor waste management, they end up clogging up drains, with the residues of toxic chemicals entering streams and rivers.

Most of the fireworks in India are made using child labour. Children exposed to such heavy metals and chemicals often suffer in health.
Here is a video showing young children working at a factory which makes matchsticks and fireworks:

2. Distribute and consume sugary sweets in moderation. White sugar is excessively refined and bleached with sulphur dioxide, and additional refining is done using phosphoric acid or calcium hydroxide to give the pearly white crystal look. As molasses is black or dark brown in colour, the sugar refining industry uses as filters, bone char – a charcoal like substance made by burning cows bones at very high temperatures. Large scale sugar plantations extensively use pesticides and fertilisers and there is heavy pollution in the wastewater discharged from the production processes in refining factories.

To increase the bulk to the above, you can add any flour such as chickpea flour(besan), wheat flour(atta or maida) or rice flour:

For wet colours, you can derive them in the following manner:

GREEN: Grind into a fine paste spinach, mint, coriander and dilute with waterRED: Soak pomegranate peels or red hibiscus petals in water overnight. Juice of tomatoes and carrots give an orange-red colour though they need to be strained and dilutedYELLOW: Boil turmeric in water to get a concentrate. Allow to cool and dilute as required. Alternatively, boil marigold or chrysanthemum petals in water, and leave overnight to cool.MAGENTA: Grate beetroot and soak in water. To get a stronger colour, boil and allow to cool.BROWN: Boil tea and/or coffee in water and strainBLACK: Boil dried Amla(Indian Gooseberry) in an iron pot (kadai) and cool overnight. Dilute as necessary. Alternatively, grind black grapes, dilute and strain.

(Preparation ideas condensed from www.holi.org)

4.Refrain from excessive shopping and consumption. Many retailers discount items for Diwali and actively promote shopping and impulse purchases. Buy only what you need. Ultimately whatever you buy requires the use of precious natural resources.

5. Avoid the use of plastic or Styrofoam disposables . They are based on scarce petroleum resources and because they take almost a hundred years to decompose. Use alternatives such as washable utensils, or biodegradable plates such as those made from the dried leaves of areca nut.

6. Moderate or do away with your purchase of goldwhich is a common custom during Diwali. I risk taking off the shine during the festive season by saying that production of gold is one of the most polluting of mining activities, ruining rivers, threatening wildlife and natural areas and in several cases, fuelling human conflict.

“In damage per ton of metal produced, nothing comes close to gold. Each ton of gold requires the processing of roughly 300,000 tons of ore – the equivalent of a small mountain. A cheap way to extract gold from ore is to use cyanide, which leaves behind toxic waste. Cyanide is so toxic that a 2 percent cyanide solution will lead to death within 40 seconds.

In January 2000, a giant spill of 130 million liters of cyanide solution from a gold mine in Romania drained into the Tisza River and emptied into the Black Sea, killing one million fish in the Hungarian segment of the river alone. This is the worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl.

Another common mining technology uses mercury to extract gold from ore. Mercury accumulates in the environment, concentrating as it moves up the food chain. It was discharges of mercury into Japan’s Minamata Bay a generation ago that demonstrated the brain damage and birth defects this heavy metal can cause. In the Amazon, gold miners release 200,000 pounds of mercury each year into the ecosystem. One teaspoon of mercury in a 25-acre lake can render fish unsafe for human consumption.

In South Africa, where most of the gold comes from underground, death in the mines is routine, claiming one life for each ton produced.”

(Source: Eco-Economy by Lester R. Brown)

For more information, look at NoDirtyGold.org . As of now, I don’t know of any certifications in Asia that guarantee that retailers source their gold manufactured in an environmentally friendly way. So, when in doubt, restraint is a good idea.

With growing wealth, there is an increasing trend in Asia towards purchase of diamonds. There is no way of telling whether diamonds are sourced from conflict-free zones. A recent article points to supplies coming to India from Zimbabwe, which has a very poor human rights track record, and the challenges faced by the Kimberley Process to certify conflict free diamonds.

It does take a tough mindset sometimes, to go against tradition. I grew up looking forward to the fireworks during Diwali. It’s usually the most fun and enjoyable part of the festival. To many including me, Diwali without fireworks would be unthinkable. Similarly, it is easy to get carried away with the festivities, especially in the process of celebrating, by shopping for oneself or for others.

Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth is worshipped very devoutly during this festival. Does real Lakshmi come from all the goodies, gold and diamond jewellery that we bestow on our children, or does She come from the pure air, water, forests and soils that we leave as lasting legacies for future generations?

Between a few hours of enjoyment, a few years of vanity and preventing lasting damage to the environment, why don’t we choose the last? That’s the light of awareness we need to spread around us.

Wishing you a green Diwali, bringing you, your family and our Earth, abundance and prosperity!

A modified version of this article appears in the Indian Institute of Technology Alumni Association Singapore (IITAAS) brochure for their Annual Diwali gathering for 2010. This article has been updated from the original one posted here on 26th October 2008.

Thanks to Sandipta Dhar and Kamayani Bali Mahabal for the link to the article on blood diamonds from Zimbabwe.